By Bradley Jolly A Tory Minister has insisted the Covid pandemic is the primary cause for crowded prisons. Lee Rowley, MP for North East Derbyshire, told a Question Time audience that the pandemic had swelled jail numbers due to the backlog of people waiting for their court cases to be heard, as well as delays in building more prisons or create more capacity in existing ones. Presenter Fiona Bruce pointed out that the Conservative Party had pledged in its 2019 manifesto to create 10,000 more prison places, and in 2021, the party promised 20,000 extra slots by the mid 2020s. Only around 5,500 h…